In this short piece Thorpe discusses the Woodcock, a delectable dish in the mid nineteenth century. This piece highlights both knowledge of the bird and thought on hunting and wildlife preservation (or lack thereof) contemporary to the time.
Thomas Bangs Thorpe 1815-1878 was an American antebellum humorist, painter, illustrator, and author best known for the short story "The Big Bear of Arkansas", which was first published in the periodical Spirit of the Times in 1841.